The Star
by Atsadific
Summary: I have heard him to be likened to a star.


**Name**: The Star  
**Author**: Astsadi  
'**Verse**: nu!Trek  
**Characters**: Jim Kirk, Spock, others mentioned  
**Rating**: G

**Summary**: I have heard him to be likened to a star.

_This was inspired by the new "Star Trek Into Darkness" teaser that was released yesterday; more specifically, the Japanese extended cut. So if you've not seen that, for goodness's sake go watch it XD It's just the last sentence of this that really that links to that scene.  
_

_Hopefully there are enough clues in here for you to figure out whose POV this is from ;)  
_

_Enjoy!_

* * *

. : . : .

* * *

_I have heard him to be likened to a star._

I have heard my captain being referred to by various different names over the years and months I have been serving under him. The greater part of these names lean towards the derogatory; insults yelled and whispered in bars and ballrooms. If the occasion allows, I rather enjoy correcting the people possessing such unflattering opinions of Jim, and even more so I relish the looks on their faces once I am through with them.

Some names are obvious. _Son of George_, perhaps the one he has hated the most. (But as the elder Kirk begun to be known as _Father of James_, his feelings on the matter have mellowed somewhat.) Some are demeaning. (He followed through on his threat to deliver a stunningly executed haymaker into the jaw of the next fellow officer to refer to him as 'sport' – a middle-aging lieutenant commander who clearly had not learned his lesson from the fiasco surrounding Commodore Ravisankar's oblivious 'kid' comments.) Some, embarrassing. (Woe betide the next crewmember to bring up his ceremonial moniker from that ritual on the planet Ta'ikar.)

It is not uncommon to hear people call Jim a star. Some have gone so far as to liken him to a supernova, but the metaphor fails when Jim continues to burn and burn and burn brighter, never appearing to fade out. Perhaps at the end of his life we might look at it as the explosive death of a star, but now, here, while he lives and breathes, the comparison falls short.

And I used to agree with the simile; it is, well, logical, isn't it? Jim is like a star in many ways. I watch him day in and day out shining, glowing with vibrancy and vitality and spreading that warmth to all around him. His smile illuminates the darkness in your own heart, and his eyes burn with nuclear promise.

I wonder sometimes too that if people did not see this connection with Jim, would anyone perhaps have taken up likening Spock to the moon? It also seems fitting, though the metaphor too begins to fall apart when it becomes obvious that there is an orbit linking the two of them, with a force unbreakable by anything _but_ the death of a star.

And that is where I realise that they are so very wrong. Because Jim is not a star any more than Spock is his satellite. The people ground-bound, reading articles about the exploits of my ship, my captain and my commander, they are so incorrect that they have actually mistaken the two.

No, Jim is not a star: not an insular, burning entity spreading the warmth of fire to those around it only because they have brought themselves close enough. Jim is _life_. Jim is joy and every day something new and growth and adaptation and risk and death and rebirth. Jim is not a star, but a planet – teeming with life and brilliance and a million perspectives, organic and shifting and never quite the same from one moment to the next. He is the magnetism of gravity, and people do not approach him but are pulled in to him. Jim is vivid sound and sight and taste and smell, yearning touches and exploration of the unknown. He is the valley and the mountain, he is the desert and the ocean, nary a square inch of him barren of life.

And like any planet, Jim needs his sun. He can survive on his own but for a constant fixture around which he can orbit, a bright light and a fiery warmth to light up his darkness. He could take his star for granted. It would be easy: look at the sun from the surface and all there is to see is an imperfect circle, unchanging, unmoving, and uncomfortable at best to behold. But that is the beauty of it, for the star is content to be plain and constant in the background – it is only when you get closer and really look at that star that you see how vibrant it truly is. For a star is an ever-shifting, roiling, fathomless sphere of energy and brilliance, furiously destroying and creating itself. The star is no plain thing. It is living, working, churning, but only if you are willing to go close enough to see it.

I have seen it. I can speak of it. I am a moon, and I have been closer to the sun than any other except for my planet. Sometimes I have thought I was closer... but the bond of gravity is between Jim and his star, and it was something I never really had hope for. But how I love the star like Jim does, and how I need him too. Jim is a planet of many moons, and we are all so different, so diverse, and yet all drawn and connected together by our bond with our living captain.

No, Jim is not the star. He is the planet spinning around a constant. It is Spock: fated to love and lose and be forever bereft, burning on when the moons and his planet are gone.


End file.
